Chinese Comedy
I’ve been thinking about something: Why don’t we have a Chinese comedy show here in the UK? (Non-UKians, consider the following shows required watching as they are HILARIOUS) Indian and Pakistani humour’s been represented by Goodness Gracious Me, Scottish Humour’s had an excellent run with Chewin’ The Fat and Still Game; Why don’t we have a sketch show involving Chinese humour?
It’s not as if we’re a small minority. Most every large city here has a Chinatown, and a sizeable portion of any office (stereotypically enough, especially technical and scientific offices) will be of Chinese extraction.
Perhaps that’s just it: I know plenty of Chinese engineers, researchers, accountants and whatnot, but only one or two who’ve made a career in the creative arts. Most of my uncles are engineers, and my aunt was a scientist. Is there, in fact, some sort of self-imposed barrier to Chinese people getting involved in writing, art, music etc?
It’s almost certainly not a culturual thing. Just look at the plethora of wonderful paintings, sculptures, jewellery, poetry and music that China has produced. Clearly, there is a place for the arts in our culture, but why is it not as prominent as in others? I mean, I can’t actually name a single Chinese standup comedian active in the UK. But they must exist, right? So why aren’t they more prominent?
Anyway, these are just my thoughts. Who knows, maybe I’ll one day get the chance to contribute to some Chinese comedy one day.
I just need to learn how to be funny, first. Gods help us if we have to wait until I’m funny before we get our own sketch show.
Joi gin!
M.
As to your blog post, IN GENERAL, AS A WHOLE, Chinese have a very dim view of humor. (There are individual exceptions of course.)
As to today’s comic. Yanking the wasp queen’s stinger out and beating her with it? Priceless!
Eh, I’m not sure if the Chinese have a dim view per se, but it certainly isn’t a HUGE element of our body of literature, etc. Humour in Chinese works prior to about the 20th Century really seems to be humorous occurrences that just happen, so the humour that I’ve seen there has been more observational than gags. Then again, when you look at Occidental humour from similar periods, the humour is much less pronounced and similarly observational, so moot point there I guess.
At the 20th century onwards, though, you do start seeing some comedy, although again they don’t seem to be the main point of the works. Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung would be prime examples; The humour is based mostly around slapstick and is not hugely complex, but the main focus is really on the Kung-Fu.
Perhaps the Chinese comedic element is too subtle and woven in the background for something like western comedy to have emerged?
That’s gotta sting! b’dang!
We have a few Asian American stand up comedian’s over here, but as a whole that entire genre is under represented, which is weird given the population ratio as a whole. I dunno, I like the humor in a lot of Jackie Chan’s movie’s, but it seldom makes the transition to the small screen.
Food for thought… What sort of comedy do the chinese go for? I mean while the bitish do just a little bit of sarcasm, what do the comedians in china do?
The ethnic comedians can do the slightly racist chat about themselves, but almost all comedians take a stab at the press and the goverment (are you allowed to do that in china yet?).
Strangely enough, only recently we are getting around to the rise of the disabled comedians in this country, and there’s been loads of them about for ages…
And last point; if it makes you feel any better about the whole thing… I’ve been laughing at you for years 😛
Like I said to Uhl, Chinese humour in the novels and whatnot, if present at all, is very understated and is more about observation or wordplay. More modern Chinese humour tends towards the slapstick (Jackie Chan) or the surreal (Stephen Chow). So, again, perhaps the Chinese humour isn’t geared towards the Western comedy we’re more used to?
AND YOUR LAUGHTER ONLY MAKES ME STRONGER. Owait, it’s your tears that do.